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You can reveal the motivation of this objection by saying, “Why do you assume God has to be good?”

Typically, if you don’t get crickets, you might get something like, “Well, that’s what you think isn’t it?”

Or, “That’s the view of Christianity, right?”

Or, “Are you saying God could be evil or indifferent?”

You can definitely get into objective morality, or the reason evil exits, etc. But sometimes it’s helpful to listen to an atheist try describe how it would be necessary for God (if he did exist) to be perfectly good. If an atheist thinks that would be a necessary characteristic of God, then the theist has some work already done making the case for God going forward (as it relates to the nature of God).

If the atheist says, “I don’t care one way or the other.”

Then, of course, why bring up the objection? So the relevant question (motivation) is:

Does the atheist see a contradiction in God and the existence of evil? (The question can masquerades as this).

-OR-

Does the atheist just reject God outright and want present a question to try to make you explain why you believe God could allow evil, bad things, when they could really care less?

The problem with this answer is that it assumes that moral standards require the existence of God. But the assumption seems unfounded, because why would they? Human empathy, compassion for the suffering and understanding what humans require for happy and fulfilled life seem to me to be quite enough to establish how good and evil should be defined. Theist might object to this standard, but that is the problem of the theist. In any case, any answer that assumes it's own premises is generally bad. Since the full argument is more closely that "uncaring universe filled with completely random pain and terror does not seem to suggest any moral qualities in the universe". An universe with evil is easy to explain. An amoral universe is tougher.

There is no world W in which the sacrifice of the Child atop the altar of fire is The-Good.

I’ve read on a webpage that Man’s Mind cannot claim to know all of God’s Mind and this is used (in that person’s philosophy) as a “defense” of agnosticism (Huh? …..wide logical disconnect there in that “reasoning”….), and, then, when the obvious is stated, i.e. a good God’s methods and ends for allowing volition in the Self to motion either into The-Other or into Privation (into the Isolated Self, aka evil) certainly has some nuances we (Created Mind) can grasp and, certainly has more (probably much more) we cannot grasp, this same person will then claim that if we don’t know all of God’s reasoning on this matter (after he just got done insisting that our finite Mind cannot see to the end of God’s Mind) that such a statement “….just won’t do…”. “If we don’t know how God’s rules are ultimately good for us then no appeal to those rules will serve….” In other words, unless Finite Mind can contain the Immutable Infinite Mind in capacity of comprehension, one cannot appeal to Immutable/Infinite Mind in one’s arguments.

Bizarre.

This same person also challenges the theist with this: “Prove to us that God’s existence is necessary in order for the meaning of Atheism’s terms to exist.”

Bizarre.

He also states this to misrepresent the Christian’s (WLC’s) definition of Objective Moral Laws: “So even if God does not exist, moral language still has meaning, and hence moral statements can be objectively evaluated for truth or falsity against that meaning. So it really is the case, regardless of whether God exists, that sentences like "murder is wrong" and "love is good" can express objectively true statements, so long as we understand wrongness and goodness to be characterized by those semantics which are independent of God…… [WL]Craig defends premise (2) of his moral argument by insisting that we apprehend objectivity in our moral experience. I think that is probably correct, except that the objectivity we apprehend is not the sort of objectivity Craig needs for his argument. In particular, we apprehend semantic objectivity; but we do not experience anything to justify inferring a concrete exemplar of perfect goodness any more than encountering an imperfect meter stick justifies inferring the existence of a perfect iridium meter bar.”

But, of course, objectively true in-spite of Human Mindsets is what is meant. And our moral landscape does give us this, and the proof is that Atheists themselves employ words like “psychopath” or “irrational” to define some acts/persons even though their ontological end points cannot support that definition. In other words, if 100% of Human Mind’s declare X to be semantically, morally, and whatever term we wish to confabulate, Right, and God declares X to be Wrong, then X is wrong. Thus raping babies for fun is, If-God, psychopathic and irrational, and, if No-God, fully set to evolve as The-Good, just as bees have evolved to kill their brothers and daughters (etc). There is nothing above this evolved mind to say otherwise for the Immaterialist is at bottom a Materialist, his Contents of Thought are but the slave, the automaton of some ill-defined will-less, volition-less precursor. In Atheism there is no immutable moral standard and thus our moral landscape is incoherent for we actually believe (via experiences) some to be “psychopathic” for such just “cannot” be “right” no matter what anyone shouts.

Atheism can only “define” psychopath here for on atheistic terms the argument that the one void of conscience is “irrational” is itself an irrational assertion, for such is merely definition unsupported by Atheism’s ontological end points.

If one’s presupposition is God-Is, then it is that raping babies for fun is always wrongeven when 100% of cultures define it as “beneficial” for A or B or C, or “good” (and so on) and such is that there is a Standard, and Exemplar, an Immutable Moral Measuring Stick (as far as our experience is showing us) which defeats Man’s Semantics and Man’s Semantics are no longer the end-point of definitions. Thus, our moral experience is telling us that there is (relative to our context) an immutable standard for nothing in our reality, nothing in our context, can bend it. Our brutally repeatable contextual experiences here inside the observational reality of the Matrix testify of those things which cannot find their coherent rational End inside our Matrix. And our universal moral experience is one (there are others) of those vectors. Thus God; for Atheism’s ontological end points cannot provide our moral landscape.

If one’s presupposition is No-God, then such experiences cannot show one the Exemplar for one presumes such does not exist. Though we have experiences which tell us our context is impinged upon by some Other Context, that just will not be seen as evidence, for God cannot be. The trick he plays here is to put the Exemplar up for grabs regardless of our common moral experience in the arena of Peter Cave’s example: “Whatever skeptical arguments may be brought against our belief that killing the innocent is morally wrong, we are more certain that the killing is morally wrong than that the argument is sound. . . . Torturing an innocent child for the sheer fun of it is morally wrong. Full stop.”

Now, if one’s presupposition is Atheism, then of course there is a Possible World where the sacrifice of a child atop an altar of fire is “The-Good” for no Immutable (Perfect, Exemplar) moral ruler exists, and of course the fact that our mutable contextual experience is being impinged upon by some other immutable context cannot be taken as evidence for an immutable moral standard relative to our context, (which BTW is enough to make the case: something outside our perceived context dominates our mutable semantics. (Enter Immutable Semantics as far as we can “see”).

Our experience is telling us that some things are always wrong and that those who inwardly moralize otherwise are “psychopathic” and also “irrational”. Now, Atheism cannot provide for this moral landscape we experience, nor can it provide for its own “reason” to believe its own mind nor can it provide (coherently) for the definition of “psychopath” because such becomes mere definition unsupported by Atheism’s ontological end points. There is no world W in which the sacrifice of the Child atop the altar of fire is The-Good. Our moral experience is telling us that. Torturing an innocent child for the sheer fun of it is morally wrong. Full stop. Our moral experience is telling us that. So much so that “psychopath” comes into play for those who moralize any other way. Thus, again, there is a Standard, and Exemplar, an Immutable Moral Measuring Stick (as far as our experience is showing us in our contextual moral landscape) which defeats Man’s Semantics and Man’s Mutable Semantics are no longer the end-point of definitions. Thus, our moral experience is telling us that there is (relative to our context) an immutable standard, a set of immutable semantics (as far as we can see) for nothing in our reality, nothing in our context, succeeds in bending it. And when it is bent, we actually believe this: psychopath. Our brutally repeatable contextual experiences here inside the observational reality of the Matrix testify of those things which cannot find their coherent rational End inside our Matrix. And our universal moral experience is one (there are others) of those vectors. Thus God; for Atheism’s ontological necessary end points cannot provide for any of this.

So, this is all a big circle back to the same challenge he gave elsewhere: “Prove to us that God’s existence is necessary in order for the meaning of Atheism’s terms to exist.”

Human empathy, compassion for the suffering and understanding what humans require for happy and fulfilled life seem to me to be quite enough to establish how good and evil should be defined. Theist might object to this standard, but that is the problem of the theist.

Happiness and fulfillment requirements can get pretty immoral. Why is that the theist’s problem?

Nielsen: “You would say, "Well, you read the Scriptures, and you see the kind of exemplar that Jesus was, his death on the cross, and so on."........But notice that to see that he is an exemplar already presupposes that you have a prior understanding of what is good and bad. Because you have an understanding of what is good and bad, you see Jesus to be a desirable exemplar. So you have an independent moral understanding and knowledge which doesn't rest on your belief in God. Suppose somebody says, "Look, God is the perfect Good by definition." Some philosophers used to call this an analytic truth--like "Puppies are young dogs." But if you didn't know what "young" meant, you couldn't even know what "puppy" meant. If you didn't know what "good" meant, you couldn't even know what "God" meant. You have to have some understanding of "good" to judge that God is the perfect Good. So again, you need a moral criterion that is your own and doesn't come from God. It may come causally from God, but it doesn't come in a justificatory sense, which is the relevant thing in arguing about morality.”

Craig: “I wouldn't say it's based on divine commands. I would say it's rooted in God's nature, which is what Plato called "the Good." It is rooted in God's very character. But Dr. Nielsen says, "But you still have to judge then that God is good. How do you know that God is good?" Here I think he is clearly confusing the order of knowing with the order of being. In order to recognize that God is good, I may have to have some prior knowledge of what the good is in order to see that God is good. But that does not affect the fact that in the order of being, values derive their source from God's being. He's confused the order of knowing with the order of being. Simply because you can recognize moral values without belief in God, you cannot infer from this that therefore objective moral values can exist without God. So I would say that we have fundamental moral intuitions. In fact, the Bible says that God has planted these on the heart of every human person so that we intuitively recognize objective moral values. These values are rooted ontologically in the being and nature of God himself.”

Semantics’ other nuances: First is the brand of Immaterialism which fails to change category from simple Materialism. [Content of Thought] seems the final regress but such is not Immutable Mind, in fact it is not even think-ing mind, but is merely (as far as we can tell) a collection of volition-less automatons which are themselves pushed around by some other ill-defined precursor. Perception is the whole of our context because we are Minds and not, say, Rocks for rocks don’t “perceive” but, while this is of course true of Soul/Spirit, this brand of immaterialism seems to fall short of volitional thought. This is in the end fatal to all nuances of moral accountability in the way we experience such and thus whether materialism (there is no physical system free of all other physical systems) or this odd brand of immaterialism in which content of thought is not alive/volitional but is itself pushed around it is unavoidable: we end in places which contradict our experiential contextual observations inside of our felt, experienced, volitions, accountabilities, and moral landscapes.

If one’s moral philosophy regresses to a place which contradicts our experiences on all these varied levels, and then one claims: “You see, my definitions are more symmetrical to our moral experience than is theism’s definitions and regresses” one simply sounds silly because one’s ontological regress does not match one’s contextual experience.

We find ontological end points failing us in Materialism and in this odd brand of Immaterialism as guilt nuanced beneath ought-not-have wrapped up inside accountable all die the death of inexplicable axiom and philosophical incoherence at best or intentional auto-hypnosis at worst. This (obviously) has implications on what we are to make of our conscience. If Mind in general and, even more necessary, Mind of a Peculiar Nature is not our Final Regress (as it is in Immutable Love as our ontological End point) then it becomes unavoidable: that faintest of echoes coming up from the worm’s eye view, as Dr. Alexander would perhaps reference, of guilt swathed within the mesh of bothers-me merely speaks another of irrationality’s lies and also the faintest of echoes of volition which we perceive in our contextual experience also is but another of irrationality’s lies as one’s ontological end points fail to line up with our experience. This odd brand of Immaterialism feigns a motion toward a regress out of the Physical as the Primary, the Un-Derived, yet [contents of thoughts] are in themselves also pushed around by some ill-defined and equally volition-less precursor which is nothing short of their Taskmaster, and herein the Circle is found complete for the move to free the automaton is a move into nothing more than a volition-less despot made of some other undefined spooky “stuff” that just is not “matter” and so in this Circle nothing changes category. Unless and until we change Category we have not arrived at a Necessary End, but have only made a Circle.

We find nothing in these ontological regresses which maintain symmetry with our felt contextual experiences.

Whether Materialism or this odd brand of Immaterialism, we find each of these must avoid allowing their semantics to follow their ontology to their respective bitter ends for when they do they lose all symmetry with our experienced moral landscape on multiple fronts, from our experienced volition to our experienced guilt to our experienced accountability to our experienced peaks and troughs within conscience and even more ominous they also lose symmetry with our experiences within those felt contexts of mercy and of justice.

Even the very semantics of these two philosophies fail to match up with our felt contexts because if and when they permit all their definitions to follow their ontology further back in regress, and further back still, we find that their swirling contexts begin, at some point, to spin ever wider and ever further out of control and soon nothing is recognizable as incoherence sets in and it as that point where, instead of of Necessary Ontological Ends demonstrating congruence with our felt contextual experiences here inside our observational matrix, we end up with congruence coming about only by cutting the Chains before their bitter ends and appealing to blind inexplicable axiom as the sole buttress of all semantics and thus the Semantics of these two philosophies themselves become incoherent and irrational.

Immutable Word, that is to say, Immutable Love, there at the bitter Necessary Ontological End of a peculiar brand of theism allows that brand to permit its Semantics and Definitions to follow its ontology further back in regress, and further back still, and at no point does his Contextual Matrix begin to defragment into unrecognizable dis-alignment with our felt experiences and thus the Chain need never be cut mid-stream and therein we find Necessary Ends not at some artificially created ends (inexplicable axiom via cutting the chain before arrival at one’s ontological necessary end points) but at the same location as one’s ontological end: thus no death of circularity. We have in theism Two Ends, an A to Z, which are themselves the very same Ends as its own stated Ontological Ends and every step along the way bears witness to our felt contextual experiential reality, and where we have Two Ends of this sort we have no circle, and all without ever losing congruence with our felt contextual experiences here inside our observational matrix.

Whereas, the Two Artificial Ends which Materialism and this odd brand of Immaterialism present are not the ends of their respective ontological end points but are instead two ends created by jumping ship before their chains ended and therein we have but inexplicable axiom, and, as these artificial ends are not their ontological ends we must, upon arriving at those artificial ends, stop, turn around, and then return from whence we came back to our starting point here inside our Matrix: Full Circle. The death of circularity.

Semantics which align with Experienceand which do not die this death of Circularity will never be found in Materialism (or this odd brand of Immaterialism which regresses not to Immutable Mind but to thought-contents which are themselves the automaton of some ill-defined precursor which is not alive/volitional). Our brutally repeatable contextual experiences here inside the observational reality of the Matrix testify of those things which cannot find their coherent rational End within our Matrix if we track these two philosophies out to their bitter ends and thus they lose all plausibility. To the contrary, the Immutable Semantics of Uncreated Word there inside of Immutable Love maintains, to His bitter Ends, congruence with our felt experiences on all these varied fronts and therein we find plausibility and coherence not only in the existential realm but also in the intellectual realm. We find in the Immutable Semantics of Uncreated Love our existential, logical, intellectual, and contextual spouse.

We find our Immutable Exemplar in all those things, inside that Logic which is not afraid to cross to the end of ad infinitum, inside that Love which is not afraid to cross to the end of ad infinitum. And we find this Exemplar in another odd place. There is here in all our brutal, bloody, horrific felt moral experiences of bare, naked evil that foreboding witness of our Immutable Exemplar whose unyielding semantics impinge upon all our painfully mutable contexts. Evil itself as we experience it here inside our observational Matrix is unable to find its own coherent end as it too must appeal to Immutable Love for its very existence.

The existence/non-existence of God is problem only for the theist that requires God for the existence of moral standards. If an atheist's moral standards do not require the existence of God, there is no dilemma. Obviously this does not mean that the theist has to accept that ethics exist outside the standard that is God, but this is not an inconsistency in the non-theists definitions or perspective.

Yeah. Relativism. Heard it before. Doesn't line up with the contextual experience of those of us who have experienced evil.

Not even close.

Existentially it doesn't hold. Intellectually it all fragments and splinters apart.

As long as the atheist draws any differentiation between good/bad his intellectual regress leads to illusion, fantasy, and incoherence inside of his ontological end point: indifference.

Differentiation is of course natural in the existential experience. But only theism has logical grounds for such. By logical we mean, well, not fantasy, not illusion, and not incoherent. It's ontological end points do not make nonsense out of its epistemological semantics.

Anger and rage at injustice, at anything at all, is, in atheism, an incoherent illusion wholly unwedded to its ontological end point: indifference.

As is our experience of volition. Of will. As is the infinite chain of causation for the existence of everything. As is our experience here in our observational moral landscape. And on and on.

The mother whose child is stolen from her just does not believe you Erkki S. when you tell her of your relativism. She, and we, believe something very different. You do too. You just can't justify it.

All you can do is give mutable semantics and epistemological dances which your ontological end points wholly contradict.

Yeah. Relativism. Heard it before. Doesn't line up with the contextual experience of those of us who have experienced evil.

I have never defended moral relativism and agree that it is fundamentally incoherent as a normative (but not necessarily as a descriptive) ethical philosophy.

Anger and rage at injustice, at anything at all, is, in atheism, an incoherent illusion wholly unwedded to its ontological end point: indifference.

The universe is always and will always be indifferent, whether theism is true or not. The individual atoms in a blade of a knife do not care whether you are cutting yourself a piece of meal or a child's throat. The atmospheric pressure differences do not care whether the wind they create will bring rain to the harvest or a destructive hurricane. Only the conscious person, an individual, can care.

The same reason you eat, drink, sleep, have sex, love, get entertained, etc. It is part of the human nature. Living is caring. Asking "Why?" doesn't make sense. It is not like you have some conscious choice in this.

"Living is caring."
Not a chance. People are naturally selfish. Anyone's concern for your well being ends the second it impacts their own.
Without the conscious choice of recognizing you as being made in God's image I wouldn't give a "tinker's D" about you or anyone else except with respect to what it does for me.

On consciousness, do mean to say you have in your head a physical system that is not the automaton of indifference?

No choice to care? Hate?

You’re not a moral relativist? I think you have to be, at bottom, though you dislike the term. If one’s epistemology is wholly disconnected from one’s ontology, one is incoherent. Normative disconnected from descriptive is exactly this disconnect of incoherence. The Noble Lie.

Child sacrifices…. Good and moral until…….until what? Or was that bit of evolution’s production line immoral from the get go?

Was there a Law which condemned these sacrifices even as natural selection was selecting for them and favoring those tendencies thus allowing it to get off the ground. And soar. For quite awhile. What Law?

There’s nothing worse than thinking one’s fancy epistemology can just exist in midair wholly disconnected from its ontology. Indifference is the end of all sentences and is the Subtext beneath everything. In fact, it is everything.

“Consciousness”? “Care”? “I’m not a moral relativist”? These three statements are irrational an incoherent for the slave never is freed from that unyielding taskmaster: indifference.

The mother whose child was just stolen just does not believe your artificial epistemology because as soon as she lays her head atop of it for some rest, for some sanity it immediately collapses as the ontology beneath just cannot support it or what she (and we) know to be the truth of the matter. We believe something very different than what Atheism can justify calling the truth of the matter.

Errki is only saying we do care about some things. Perhaps our loved ones. I wrestle with my own self focus, as you point out. He is not saying we SHOULD care for our loved ones. He, of course, thinks we should, but, he'll never say so as such cannot be grouned in indifference and enslaved physical systems. But of course the whole weight of caring is not that we DO, but that we SHOULD. That is where the meat of the meal is found. "We care" is, well, who cares?

Now, "We should care"! THAT is the prime rib!

All he is left with is the Is To Ought Fallacy or the Genetic Fallacy. Neither get very far once logic takes over.

The Self Evident and the Unyielding Exemplar and the non-existence of a defeater of sufficient strength:

"Psychopath" is a meaningless word inside of Atheism. Volition-less Indifference just is the definition of "psychopath" and such is the ontological end point of every sentence within atheism. It is the Subtext beneath all Context. Thus to attempt the differentiation to something outside of, other than, separate from indifference is, without god, irrational and incoherent. If the Subtext beneath one’s feet cannot support the Context above one’s head, one’s entire philosophy loses all plausibility.

When the hard fist of bare, naked evil hits us in the face we just do not believe the moral relativism which atheism’s ontological end points are forced to assign to our brutally felt contextual moral experience here inside our observational Matrix. Our existential moral experience in such places as those is telling us something about actual reality which is objectively true, or, it is telling us of an illusory fantasy. We all know fantasies in-here do not become realities out-there. This is the critical difference between epistemological semantics and ontology’s regress to its bitter end. It is self-evident that The-Real is to be desired above The-Fantasy, that Truth is more desirable than Autohypnosis.

And so atheism’s only hope is to try to ground this existential witness of “This can never be right even if everyone on earth believes it is right into man’s own mutable psyche: man’s own biological composition which is but the automaton of Nature’s ontological end: Volition-less Indifference. Raw evil ripping at the one we love is enough to bring the witness of this unbending Exemplar. We can stop here. But, we can add to one more thing to make the point. So let us add to it this: for the fun of it. Now the witness becomes a symphony which brings the existential testimony into the fore as that ominous hideousness presents us with a certain actuality which speaks inside the self-evident in witness to a Truth which we believe, which we know, and that Truth is this: “This, whatever this is, this is ever the filth, ever the ugly, and never the lovely, this is ever the Ought-Not and is never the Good, and such is true always, and should all the world delight in this down to the last of us there would be that certain Other which yet stands in contradiction to this. That unspeakable Immutable Exemplar is found in this symphony as that which is alive, that which speaks, that which stands in the self-evidence of the unyielding.

Against this properly basic belief housed within the Self-Evident Atheism can never counter with a defeater of sufficient strength and so it instead resorts to committing suicide rather than admit its incoherence with this move: “Well, all these brutally repeatable contextual experiences within our observational reality are illusions for Mind is but a Con”. And of course it never does present us with the perceived defeater of sufficient power to make such a claim and thus this move only makes it worse for the Atheist for instead of a mere “gap” of raw incoherence he is now faced with utter non-existence for all of Perception, all of what Mind does, all of what Mind is, is, by this move, laid atop the altar and, by his own hands, slaughtered. Suicide via self-proclaimed psychosis.

Against this properly basic belief housed within the Self-Evident, against this symphony, Atheism's sickly relativism can never present a defeater of sufficient strength as such attempts cannot withstand that Unyielding Exemplar the weight of Whom is just too pressing for the Subtext which lies beneath all of Atheism's Contexts: indifference. Atheism’s attempt at moral semantics cannot rise above relativism and the chorus of all its semantics here end in incoherence within both the existential and the intellectual for Atheism's regress to its own ontology's bitter end at the end of ad infinitum brings the death of circularity as it struggles to escape and deny the sheer volition-less indifference which saturates its skin. This death of circularity our Immutable Exemplar can never see for He is never afraid to allow His Immutable Semantics the right to cross the ad infinitum to the bitter end of His Ontology, which is Love, which is Himself. Michael Ruse is not afraid to grant his epistemological semantics the right to follow his ontology to its bitter end at the end of ad infinitum as he prefers Truth over Fantasy: “The position of the modern evolutionist……..is that humans have an awareness of morality…….. because such an awareness is of biological worth. Morality is a biological adaptation no less than are hands and feet and teeth…….. Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory. I appreciate that when somebody says ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself,’ they think they are referring above and beyond themselves…….. Nevertheless…….. such reference is truly without foundation. Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction…….and any deeper meaning is illusory…..”

Darwin in The Descent of Man is also not afraid to grant his epistemology and his semantics the right to traverse the ad infinitum and climb out of the ocean onto the shore of their ontological bedrock as he embraces Truth over Fantasy: “If……..men were reared under precisely the same conditions as hive-bees, there can hardly be a doubt that our unmarried females would, like the worker-bees, think it a sacred duty to kill their brothers, and mothers would strive to kill their fertile daughters, and no one would think of interfering…..”

Dawkins too is not afraid of his ontological end points and chooses Truth over Fantasy: “……there is at bottom no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pointless indifference. . . . We are machines for propagating DNA. . . . It is every living object’s sole reason for being…..”

There is intellectual incoherence for all of us who are not psychopaths for volition-less indifference is the final regress of all of atheism’s ontology. Our existentially felt realty in the face of the hard fist of bare, naked evil unmasks a foreboding witness of that Immutable Exemplar whose unyielding and immutable semantics impinge upon all of our painfully mutable contexts.

This moral landscape fragments into incoherence inside of atheism and becomes but a Lie infused into our psyche by Nature herself. We find that this Lie, this Fantasy, is embraced as a Noble Lie for such seems to help Man thrive. Dr. Craig elucidates, “Dr. L. D. Rue……. boldly advocated that we deceive ourselves by means of some "Noble Lie" into thinking that we and the universe still have value. Claiming that "The lesson of the past two centuries is that intellectual and moral relativism is profoundly the case”, Dr. Rue muses that the consequence of such a realization is that one's quest for personal wholeness (or self-fulfillment) and the quest for social coherence become independent from one another. This is because on the view of relativism the search for self-fulfillment becomes radically privatized: each person chooses his own set of values and meaning. If we are to avoid "the madhouse option”, where self-fulfillment is pursued regardless of social coherence, and "the totalitarian option”, where social coherence is imposed at the expense of personal wholeness, then we have no choice but to embrace some Noble Lie that will inspire us to live beyond selfish interests and so achieve social coherence. A Noble Lie "is one that deceives us, tricks us, compels us beyond self-interest, beyond ego, beyond family, nation, [and] race." It is a lie, because it tells us that the universe is infused with value (which is a great fiction), because it makes a claim to universal truth (when there is none), and because it tells me not to live for self-interest (which is evidently false). "But without such lies, we cannot live."”

Noble Lie, i.e. incoherence in all of us who are not psychopaths (if no god) for volition-less indifference is the Subtext beneath all of our Context (if no god) and we find that the Subtext beneath our feet cannot support the weight of the Context above our heads and thus the skies are forever falling here within the Matrix. Our brutally repeatable contextual experiences here inside the observational reality of the Matrix testify of Love’s Perfect Exemplar and this cannot find a coherent rational End within our Matrix if we track Atheism out to its bitter ontological ends and thus Atheism simply loses all plausibility in the face of both Love and Evil.

To the contrary, the Immutable Semantics of Uncreated Word there inside Immutable Love maintains, to His bitter Ends, congruence and symmetry with our felt experiences on all these varied fronts and therein we find plausibility and coherence not only in the existential realm but also in the intellectual realm. We have no need of the Noble Lie, of any Lie at all for the Unyielding Exemplar’s A to Z swallows up all of atheism’s artificial and frayed ends which it created in haste in its state of panic as it tried to grasp something beyond the indifferent by slicing up its ontological regress in the attempt to set its epistemology free. We find in the Immutable Semantics of Uncreated Love our existential, logical, intellectual, and contextual spouse.

Nature has lied to Man, if no god. She has infused him with illusion, if no god. We have preferred the Noble Lie to the Truth of all things, if no god. Either truth will be cheap, or, life will be cheap, if no god. But we believe, we know that both Truth and Life matter. Such is Self-Evident. Thus, again, we are wholly incoherent. Unless: Perfect Exemplar. Unless: the Immutable Semantics of Immutable Love.

Not a chance. People are naturally selfish. Anyone's concern for your well being ends the second it impacts their own.

Who's the "people"? There are people who do not care about anything other then themselves, and people who do not care even about themselves. And there are people who have given their life, their happiness, and their well-being for total strangers. Trying to reduce humanity to some "this is what we are" -story does not work for explaining reality.

Without the conscious choice of recognizing you as being made in God's image I wouldn't give a "tinker's D" about you or anyone else except with respect to what it does for me.

You obviously have the right (if it can be called that) to frame your caring in whatever context you find appropriate. I don't see why it should concern the non-theist or the agnostic. In my viewpoint, metaphysics are irrelevant to reasons for my caring.

And it is. Such like love and sex and food are a part of human nature. But that doesn't mean there are not people who do not love anyone, or asexual people, or people who can not eat anything other then fluids. Doesn't make a difference to those who do love and care about food, sex etc.

Evil as we experience it testifies of Immutable Love. This is elucidated a bit further in the link provided earlier in this thread to the essay, “The ‘Evil God’ Objection”. Contrary to flawed philosophy there is in all our brutal, bloody, horrific felt moral experiences of bare, naked evil that foreboding testament of our Immutable Exemplar whose unbending context and unyielding semantics impinge upon all our painfully mutable contexts and semantics. Evil itself as we experience it here inside our observational Matrix is unable to find its own coherent end as it too must appeal to Immutable Love for its very existence.

The mere existence of seemingly absolute moral truths is not proof that these truths originate in God or in any divine being. The concept of transcendent moral truth is a valid idea, but these perceived objective morals are only the result of the innate empathy found in the human mind. The capacity to understand the emotions of other people brings forth universal dispositions to specific actions. Moral "truths" are almost always decided by a reasoning of whether or not the action in question jeopardizes the well being of other people, either in a physical, mental or emotional sense. Objective morals are not relative to a universally accepted “perfect” standard, but rather relative to a specific action’s effects on others. Any action that will have a directly negative effect on another person will tend to be perceived as objectively wrong.
Disagreements on the morality of actions in regards to this perception of morality can come from multiple angles including whether the action in fact will have a negative effect on anyone, the extent of justification required to make the action acceptable, and, until recently, whether the people who are affected are equal in their value to society. All of these differences of opinion are based on situational biases in the surrounding culture causing perceptions of specific actions to change and likewise cultural standards, but the foundation of determining the morality of an action remains in whether or not the action causes the diminishing of the well being of another human.
Standards clearly change from culture to culture(this is a result of different levels of perceived justification and worth placed on human life of a "lower status") making the assumption of a single moral standard accepted by every culture throughout history a naive claim at best. Though the morals may stay objective based on the innate value of human life, standards will always change between cultures.